Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

MINISTRY OF HOUSING

CONTENTS

Wednesday 14 July 1993

Ministry of Housing

Hon Evelyn Gigantes, Minister

Crom Sparling, director, strategic planning and research

Daniel Burns, deputy minister

Peter Schafft, acting executive director, housing field operations

Robert Glass, executive director, rent control programs

STANDING COMMITTEE ON ESTIMATES

*Chair / Président: Jackson, Cameron (Burlington South/-Sud PC)

Vice-Chair / Vice-Présidente: Arnott, Ted (Wellington PC)

*Abel, Donald (Wentworth North/-Nord ND

Bisson, Gilles (Cochrane South/-Sud N)

Carr, Gary (Oakville South/-Sud PC)

Elston, Murray J. (Bruce L)

*Haeck, Christel (St Catharines-Brock ND)

*Jamison, Norm (Norfolk ND)

*Lessard, Wayne (Windsor-Walkerville ND)

Mahoney, Steven W. (Mississauga West/-Ouest L)

Ramsay, David (Timiskaming L)

*Wiseman, Jim (Durham West/-Ouest ND)

*In attendance / présents

Substitutions present/ Membres remplaçants présents:

Harrington, Margaret H. (Niagara Falls ND) for Mr Bisson

Marland, Margaret (Mississauga South/-Sud PC) for Mr Arnott

Poole, Dianne (Eglinton L) for Mr Elston

Clerk / Greffière: Grannum, Tonia

The committee met at 1536 in committee room 2.

MINISTRY OF HOUSING

The Chair (Mr Cameron Jackson): I'd like to call to order the standing committee on estimates. We have approximately five hours remaining to complete the estimates of the Ministry of Housing. As I understand, in terms of the rotation, we'll be recognizing the third party. But before that, generally at the commencement of each day's session, if there are any inquiries that the ministry or the minister has responses to, perhaps you could share those with the committee at the beginning to be circulated to assist with any further questions. Are there any items, minister?

Hon Evelyn Gigantes (Minister of Housing): Yes. Mr Brown yesterday had asked for information about changes in rent discounted by inflation over the last five years, and we are about to provide to committee members information which may help him, which may be a little bit difficult for members to read. It would be worthwhile perhaps to have Crom Sparling, who's put it together, just explain to members how to read that. This is private market rents. He's all out of breath.

The Chair: Mr Sparling, please introduce yourself and your title, and respond.

Mr Crom Sparling: Crom Sparling. I'm the director of strategic planning and research in the Ministry of Housing. The chart you have is based on Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp private market information.

Mr Daniel Burns: The charts are just now being handed out, so people don't have them.

Mr Sparling: Everybody have them? There are two pages. We have taken a two-bedroom unit as an average. Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp does not provide average rents for an entire CMA; it breaks it out by bedroom count. What you see on the first page, for two-bedroom units, is the average year-over-year rent increase from 1988 through 1992, and what the annual average is over that five-year period is over on your right-hand side. So in Hamilton, for instance, in 1988, the year-over-year rent increases for the average two-bedroom unit were 8.3% and the five-year average, from 1988 through 1992 in Hamilton, for a two-bedroom unit, was 5.7%.

What we've tried to do on the second page, to give a comparison to inflation, is that we've taken the component from the consumer price index that relates to rented accommodation and we have shown both rented accommodation including parking and utilities and straight cash rent only. Perhaps the most appropriate comparison is the first column: rented accommodation. So you can see here that over the five-year period, this is Ontario, the rent component of CPI has gone up 4.2%.

Comparing back to the previous page, in Hamilton again, the five-year average rent increase was 5.7% and the CPI for all Ontario, for rent increase, was 4.2%.

Now, that rented accommodation for all Ontario is all sizes of rented accommodation as well, from bachelors to four-bedroom units.

The Chair: Sorry to interrupt you, but are there any questions going to emanate from this information? If not, we'll just receive it now, at this point. Thank you very much.

Mrs Margaret Marland (Mississauga South): Mr Chairman?

The Chair: Mrs Marland, I would prefer that you begin your rotation, and if you'd like to look at making suggestions about the meeting time, that we do that a little informally, but that we proceed at this time.

Mrs Marland: I just wanted to help the minister and the minister's staff. I was going to make a constructive suggestion.

The Chair: I understand the nature of your suggestion: You'd like to finish estimates today. I really am not inviting a great long debate in that area, but if you can assure me that we can deal with it in one or two minutes, then that would be fine. But if not, I'm required by the committee to get on with the business of the day.

Mrs Marland: Well, there are five hours left.

The Chair: Correct.

Mrs Marland: Which is a little more than an hour and a half per caucus. I was wondering, as we have done previously in estimates, about having an agreement whereby, in order not to have all the members of staff who are here from the ministry come to another session, that the time be used by the opposition critics; that we still use the same amount of time that we would have and the government has the option of forgoing its portion of time. Then the meeting would be finished when we had used up our time. In other words, we just go straight through our time rather than rotating.

The Chair: Just for clarification, are you suggesting that, to finish today, you and the opposition party divide the balance of today between the two of you and not come back next Tuesday? Is that what you're proposing? I'm looking for guidance here. I'm asking for clarification. Is that what you're suggesting?

Ms Dianne Poole (Eglinton): We had a very preliminary discussion about this, the fact not only of staff time but the difficulties of trying to juggle with very limited resources this month. Last year there were five hours of estimates time on Housing. This year, for some reason, it was substantially more. I guess that's what the House leaders negotiated.

The Chair: Mrs Poole, the Liberal Party requested the estimates of Housing, and it requested seven and a half hours. Please get to your point, because I would like to get on with the agenda.

Ms Poole: My point is that we concur with Mrs Marland. If we could finish up today, that would be fine. I had suggested that the government might have a few questions. If they wanted to have till 4 and then Mrs Marland and I split the balance of time, that would certainly be fine with me.

The Chair: I'd like to hear from the third party --

Ms Christel Haeck (St Catharines-Brock): That's the government.

The Chair: The governing party; sorry.

Ms Haeck: We're number three in the questioning; that's true.

The Chair: For so many years around here you were referred to as the third party. I apologize.

Ms Haeck: We understand, Cam. It's occasionally possible even for you to misspeak yourself.

I think the consensus on this side is no, we'd like to actually be in a position of asking some questions ourselves. While I know that in the past it has occasionally been the way of doing things, in this case the answer's no.

The Chair: All right. Mrs Marland, please proceed.

Mrs Marland: That's fine. This way we get more time overall. I was just trying to be helpful.

Okay, first question, Madam Minister: There is extreme confusion in your ministry over not only the cost of social housing subsidies but also the number of units that have been and will be built. I have a set of figures provided by the Deputy Minister of Housing to the standing committee on public accounts in May 1993 which shows the number of non-profit units that had come under subsidy by the end of fiscal 1992-93 to be 86,681. The total at maturity in 1998 is listed as 133,047. It appears that these figures do not include units built prior to 1986, yet the Housing ministry's own community housing user management information system, a social housing inventory, lists 131,681 non-profit units already under management as of June 1993, with another 8,681 still under development.

To add to the confusion, another ministry chart that contains social housing information by region said that the total number of non-profit units was 136,531 in September 1992. That did not include another 84,427 units of Ontario Housing Corp units.

If that's not enough, the Urban Development Institute, doing research through Jobs Ontario Homes, was given yet another set of figures for non-profit housing. Including the last 20,000 units under Jobs Ontario Homes, the total number of units at maturity was said to be 92,600 units, and maturity was 1995 or 1996. These figures from Jobs Ontario Homes included units built between 1979 and 1985.

The auditor had still another set of figures in his report, a total of 81,600 non-profit units under subsidy by 1995.

Talk about confusing.

Can the ministry tell us how many units of non-profit housing there really are in Ontario and how many there will be when all present commitments have been completed? I would like to receive a breakdown that shows the number of units that were built under each non-profit housing program, and during which time period. As well, I would like the breakdown to show the number of units already under management versus the number that are still under development.

Do you want me to give you a few questions, or do you want to answer them one at a time?

Hon Ms Gigantes: We are quite prepared to answer at this stage. I believe, just to begin, that you received a printout dated June 22, 1993, which is the most up-to-date information that the ministry has printed out. Dan was going to make some comments about some of the questions that you've raised under your general questions.

Mr Burns: I was only going to remark that the difference in totals usually arises because the question asked is a partial question, that is, how many units there are from a period of time or a particular subset of programs. I think the way you framed the question at the end, which is "I'd like to see the complete universe, program by program," would give you a complete picture. We can do that. The summary sheet that the minister referred to is an attempt to cover all of that. I think it does directly answer the question you just asked. I would just have to check on some of the earliest versions of programs, but I believe this is the universe that you have just asked about.

Mrs Marland: So you think this sheet that you handed out yesterday answers that question.

Mr Burns: Yes. You see, if you look down the left side, it lists it all by program.

Hon Ms Gigantes: It doesn't tell you, for example, under federal-provincial, when the first noted 31,033 units were being built.

Mr Burns: You asked the question of when they arose in time. There's another element to this, that these are all the programs that involve the province of Ontario. That's not the same thing as "How many non-profit housing units are there in Ontario?" because there are a number of non-profit housing units that are only supported by the federal government.

Mrs Marland: Well, of course I know that.

Mr Burns: If a question like that is asked -- that is, what is the complete number of non-profit units in the province of Ontario? -- you get a different number from, what are the number of non-profit and cooperative units supported by the provincial government in the province of Ontario?

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Mrs Marland: I think my question is very specific, and maybe the best thing to do -- although you will have it on Hansard, but you won't get it quickly on Hansard. We didn't get the Hansard yet from yesterday, did we?

Ms Poole: Actually, I did have Hansard delivered to me in the House just not too long before I came down today.

Mrs Marland: That's why I missed it, I guess, because I was already down here.

Could we agree, Madam Minister, that there will be written answers to the specific questions that I've just placed so that we don't have the ambivalence of, "Perhaps this answers it," and maybe it doesn't answer specifically the question I just placed?

Hon Ms Gigantes: Let me be clear then. I can read Hansard to find out, but perhaps you'd make it clear for me now, are you concerned to have us trace all the federal-only units too, or is your concern the provincial involvement in non-profit?

Mrs Marland: I think our total focus is on what comes under your ministry --

Hon Ms Gigantes: Good.

Mrs Marland: -- and also, as I said, some of the figures are talking about projections, and the projection years even are different. Your projection year here is 1996-97, and I think in one of the letters that we've received it was 1995 or 1996. I'll give you a copy, Mr Burns, of these questions, and I think if I can have assurance that those answers will be provided, that's all I need to know.

Hon Ms Gigantes: That's fine. I believe that most of your question in fact is addressed by this page. The one point that is not addressed by this page is an indication of exactly when the federal-provincial programs were initiated, which is noted on this sheet as, "As of March 31, 1993," including 31,033 units. We can give you a breakdown of the date of completion of the federal-provincial program in the years previous to that. Otherwise, you're looking at programs for which the province is responsible and which you can see starting from --

Mrs Marland: This doesn't show those under development either. That's what I would like.

Hon Ms Gigantes: It's the difference between units under subsidy and projections.

Mrs Marland: Are they necessarily under development, though?

Mr Burns: "Under development" is a term we use for tracking units through the process.

Mrs Marland: That's right.

Mr Burns: First they start in a program pool, then they get allocation and they get classified as under development. So that's a different number.

Mrs Marland: That's a different category.

Hon Ms Gigantes: Do you mean under construction or do you mean in the development process?

Mrs Marland: I think we're using your terminology. I think once they're under development they're committed, aren't they?

Mr Burns: Yes. That's its meaning: They've got a full commitment from us.

Mrs Marland: I think that's why we were asking it the way it is.

Hon Ms Gigantes: Fair enough.

Mrs Marland: I'll go to another question. The expenditure control plan lists under its savings for the Ministry of Housing $70 million from refinancing mortgages for the non-profit housing portfolio. Could the minister provide an itemized breakdown by mortgage of the following since April 1, 1992: the name of the non-profit housing corporation; the amount of the mortgage that was refinanced; the lender, including both past and present lenders if there has been a change; the mortgage term, number of months, for the new or renewed mortgage; the cost of any penalty incurred from renegotiating the mortgage; the old mortgage rate and the new mortgage rate in percentages; the saving that will be achieved from refinancing the mortgage; total savings by fiscal year for 1992-93 and 1993-94?

There's a very specific reason for asking for that information, and obviously it would be information you would want to have anyway. I have been told that the $70-million saving results from shifting the original $1.4 billion in Canada pension plan borrowing for Homes Now to private lenders at lower rates. However, because the Ontario government could not simply walk away from its obligations to the CPP, the Ministry of Finance had to pick up this credit line at the old 10.4% interest rate for other borrowing purposes.

If so, there has been no net saving to the provincial government, just a juggling of the books. Is this true? If not, please explain how the savings have been derived and demonstrate that there have been savings, not just a movement of the $70 million to some other government account.

Hon Ms Gigantes: Dan's going to comment on this one, but I would say, Margaret, that it will be quite easy to provide the information in terms of a group of portfolios, a group of developments. But if we are to turn to each development, the name of the development and so on, we'll have to go back to original working papers and that will take some time.

Mrs Marland: This is only since a year ago, April 1992, but if it takes some time, that's fine, as long as you will assure me that we will have it.

Hon Ms Gigantes: Okay. If you find out the amount of time involved and the amount of work that it will take to go back, you may decide that it's not worth the effort involved and we can give you an estimate on that.

Mrs Marland: Okay.

Mr Burns: The savings forecast in the refinancing area derive from a number of different refinancing efforts. Some is the renewal of mortgages that are now coming up; I've been doing it in the most competitive way possible. Another is taking mortgages that would otherwise run for another year or two and refinancing them now for an extended period of time to get some advantage of the interest rate break. Third is refinancing some of the long-term debt on the Ontario Housing Corp that's now well above mortgage rates we can get in the market. Only one element of the larger package was the replacement of CPP mortgages with market mortgages.

Now, you're right, the CPP money then flows to the Treasurer. Obviously, then, we have a slower subsidy flow, but we did not get full credit for that in this system, because the Treasurer had to pay to service that debt that he then inherited. What the government did do, though, is forgo the costs associated with borrowing that money in the marketplace, which is a considerable saving to the Treasurer. In addition, at the present time there's a difference between borrowing in the real estate mortgage market and borrowing in the bond market, which made the two kinds of borrowing more attractive when one was in the mortgage market.

We have not, either here or in the Treasurer's accounts, taken, if you want to put it this way, credit where no credit is due. There are some savings to the government in doing this kind of refinancing, not --

Mrs Marland: But some of what I said was correct.

Mr Burns: Your description of it is quite accurate, but there are savings associated with doing that kind of refinancing.

Mrs Marland: Okay. And I'll get the other information later?

Hon Ms Gigantes: Yes. What I'd like to do is get an estimate of what will be involved in breaking out the groups of projects which have been refinanced and isolating each individual development within it, Margaret, and give you that estimate.

Mrs Marland: It will all be on computer somewhere, though, won't it?

Hon Ms Gigantes: I'm not sure it's all on computer, but that's what I will give you.

Mr Burns: We can send a preliminary letter that gives you the sense of what the work will be.

Mrs Marland: It must all be on computer. You must have the records of what the mortgages are and what they cost. That must be basic information, isn't it?

Hon Ms Gigantes: These are different programs at different times and in different kinds of categories. Just how easy it will be to draw out specific projects, I can't tell you at this moment, but I'll certainly be glad to find out and report to you.

Mrs Marland: Okay. Last February, the Ontario Human Rights Commission ruled that landlords violate the Ontario Human Rights Code when they consider a prospective tenant's income when renting a residence. Further, the commission said in a policy statement that it will "seek as a remedy the discontinuance of the application of the 30% rule. The commission does not view credit checks, credit references, rental history or guarantors as appropriate alternatives."

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The commission decided that the rule of thumb which states that tenants should not devote more than 30% of their income to rent is arbitrary, yet it ruled out virtually all options with its list of other supposedly objectionable criteria. In other words, even though a landlord extends credit to a tenant by giving that tenant the use of a property in return for the promise of a monthly payment, the landlord would not be able to check on the tenant's creditworthiness.

The commission's decision is being appealed. The hearings will begin next February. To see how unworkable this decision is, consider its logical conclusion. This ruling would prevent any company which extends credit from refusing someone just because the customer does not have enough income to pay for the product. It isn't just private sector landlords that will be affected by this ruling; so will public sector landlords.

The provincial government, municipal non-profit housing corporations etc do use income testing to determine whether a prospective tenant requires a rental subsidy and the amount of that subsidy. If the income test were ruled to be discriminatory, the very raison d'être of assisted housing would be under attack.

Given the essential role of income testing in social housing programs, does the minister think it is reasonable for any property owner not to be able to use income testing to determine affordability of housing?

Hon Ms Gigantes: I'm not going to comment on the case, which, as the member points out, is not determined yet. I think, though, that it does raise issues which are of importance, as she points out, in the private market, and also within the housing which we have helped finance and through which we provide rent-geared-to-income housing.

When she says, however, that it threatens the very raison d'être of assisted housing, I would disagree. What it does challenge is the basis on which we determine what a mixed-income development will be and how we determine how that mix of incomes is going to be achieved.

It is a policy goal, and has been for some time in the non-profit field, to have a mix of incomes. As she's well aware, the current mix overall is about 75% rent-geared-to-income and 25% private-market rates within developments. If we're going to maintain that as a goal, then how we determine the income mix becomes a question which this issue affects.

Mrs Marland: But how do you determine the income, never mind the income mix? If you can't do a credit check, how do you know what category I would fit into? If I come to you --

Hon Ms Gigantes: It doesn't have to do with your credit rating; it has to do with your income. As you've pointed out, what is in question here is whether a landlord, including a non-profit landlord, in trying to reach the goal of having mixed-income development -- which has been set by the Ministry of Housing and approved by many governments -- has the right to ask what the income of the household is and to determine eligibility for market units within a development on the basis of the reply.

It poses a conundrum, she's quite right, and we will not have guidance in terms of a decision for a while, as she points out. In the meantime, it leaves the question open, and it is a difficult question. Any advice she has on this would be interesting to hear; I know she won't want to comment on the case itself.

Mrs Marland: No, I don't want to comment on the case. That's why my question was very broad when I said, "Do you think it's reasonable for any property owner not to be able to use income testing to determine the affordability of" -- I mean, if I come to you for a subsidy, how are you going to know that I'm eligible for a subsidy if you don't ask all the questions to establish my eligibility?

Hon Ms Gigantes: The difference is this: Nobody has challenged the authority of a non-profit landlord and the social assistance system and our rent-geared-to-income system to determine, under the rules of the assistance program, whether it's rent-geared-to-income or social assistance, whether somebody is eligible for that assistance. Nobody's challenging that in this case.

What is being challenged is, for example, if you come to me and say, "My income is $1,000 a month but I'm willing to pay $700 a month for a market rent unit within a social housing development," and I say to you: "No, I'm sorry, you can't enter the market rent unit because your income is too low. You will be paying 70% of your income in that market rent unit." That's the question at issue here.

Mrs Marland: If I come to you and say --

The Chair: I'm going to have to interrupt; I apologize. This is very interesting, but, Mrs Marland, you've gone over by five minutes, which I'll make up in terms of the time. But I sense --

Mrs Marland: Are we doing 20-minute rounds?

The Chair: We were doing 15-minute rounds until I lost my courage to interrupt you, but you have now been interrupted. I would like to recognize Mr Wiseman. Please proceed.

Mr Jim Wiseman (Durham West): This conversation is going to go in an entirely different direction now. Sorry, Margaret.

In my riding, as you are well aware, I have this place called Seaton. When the land was originally expropriated in 1972 by the government of the day, which was Tory, it did a housing study and a policy study. Out of that came a guideline of the North Pickering project. It was 1975. Half that land was to be designated as agricultural preserve; the other half was to be used for industrial, commercial, residential development.

For a town which started at 250,000 -- my question is, do I understand correctly that it is now to be 45,000?

Hon Ms Gigantes: I hate to comment on that. Dan?

Mr Burns: The government, as you well know, had a series of public discussions about Seaton new town in the fall of 1991 which looked at the question of whether a town site could be established in a relatively small footprint, leaving not just a fair amount of terrain in agricultural use but the valleys in a natural state and principles of that sort.

The smaller town site, developed at densities that were more in keeping with what a small town now looks like in the province of Ontario and less like a series of subdivisions as we knew them in the 1970s or early 1980s, could accommodate as an order of magnitude something between 50,000 and 90,000 people depending on how you went about it and how you staged it.

That process was not intended to produce a population goal for a town site but rather to look at whether you could have a smaller town site developed in a more compact form and maximize the amount of terrain that would be devoted to the other principles that are important in that part of the world.

Following that, we have now begun to organize a bit more detailed look at the natural world out there, at the consequences of choosing more compact urban forms and, out of that, a look at some of the issues involved in timing and economic base. Out of that will come, I think, a more concrete range of possibilities in terms of population.

The number you chose is a possible number -- it's at the lower end of the kind of range we've been looking at -- but I don't think anyone's far enough advanced looking at this kind of town in this climate to be able to say definitively that it should be a town at all, frankly, or, if it's a town at some point, exactly what its population might be. It's certainly not 150,000 or 250,000 or some of the numbers that have been used historically when thinking about this part of the world.

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Mr Wiseman: Perhaps you could comment on the ministry's philosophical view of how this development will take place. For example, I remember great fanfare in 1988 when under the Liberal government it was announced that there would be a conglomerate of developers responsible for this. Some of those developers now have gone bankrupt. One's family still is a member of the Liberal Party, was a member in the Legislature.

The Chair: Be careful, Mr Wiseman, how you couch that, please -- I'm absolutely serious -- when you start couching "developers," "bankruptcy" and "member of the Legislature" in the same sentence. You're allowed your partisanship, but I'd just be very careful of the way that was conveyed. Please and thank you.

Mr Wiseman: My question has to do with who the proponent is going to be in terms of how this project will go forward. Would it be the Ontario Land Corp? Would it be the Ministry of Housing? Would the land be sold off? Have you given any thought to the proponency of this project?

Mr Burns: There are several stages that a town site needs to go through on its path from agricultural, natural life to urban life, and I think each stage poses different questions about who a proponent might be or how it might be operated. At the moment, the situation is that if the work that's going on now leads to a conclusion that there should be a more active movement towards town development, that would be handled by reviving the North Pickering Development Corp, which still has responsibility for this geography. But there has been no decision made to do that. If you revive the North Pickering corporation, you would then have a board of directors established and some staffing around that.

The first stage of work, if you are actually moving at some pace, is to establish a planning framework for the town site and begin to look at the economic development issues and the physical infrastructure issues. Normally, all over the world, when the public is sponsoring a new town, that phase of work is carried out by the public agency: putting the policy framework in place and establishing the chain of investment. At that point there is a divergence in practice about who would then implement that. Sometimes that's done by a development corporation that's owned in the public sector, sometimes it's a partnership, and sometimes they've been done by private companies.

What we are doing in east Markham is working with Markham towards a planning and development framework and then looking at how, in an orderly way, we can take the approved parcels within it, service them and sell them to the appropriate builder, whether that's a private builder or a non-profit builder.

It's possible that we may choose to auction large groups of lots or small groups of lots. That's something that has to be carefully examined in the marketplace that you're actually operating in, in order to ensure you get not just a good return but a process that respects your policy goals and delivers you the town plan that people have developed and want to see implemented.

So the question of whether you would have an entirely private consortium develop the town site is one that can be asked and answered at each stage of the process, but at the moment we are considering only the very early stages of this, which is trying to ask and answer questions about a town in that location. That would lead to a decision about whether it's the right time to move to establishing a proper official plan, an infrastructure or framework for the place. Only when you're through those two steps, I think, can you really look at private investment.

I think at the current moment the land development industry is in a state where it is not easy to find financing if you are very early in the development process. The overhang of the real estate bust means that people really only find it easy to finance development if they're pretty close to the marketplace and have the kind of pre-sales and all that kind of stuff that you'd want.

As one other additional thing, I'm not sure whether, even if you wanted to have an entirely private sector consortium take on a major development, at this point it would be a very simple thing to finance.

Mr Wiseman: I have more questions, but I will allow my colleagues to ask some.

Hon Ms Gigantes: If I could just comment for a second, when I first came to the Ministry of Housing somebody said to me, "You may be the minister who will oversee the development of Ataratiri and Seaton." I didn't think so then and I don't think so now.

Mr Wiseman: But the disposition of the land will always be of concern, given that it's been there and it's been bandied around and the people who have lived on it --

Hon Ms Gigantes: I remember every instance of change in that land holding over the last many years.

Mr Wiseman: Many of those people have lived with 20 years of uncertainty which they would really like to have settled.

Hon Ms Gigantes: That's right.

Ms Margaret H. Harrington (Niagara Falls): We've got lots of questions here.

In the introductory remarks that you read yesterday, on page 4 you made a very good comment: that Consultation Counts, the document we put forward, sets out important new directions for non-profit housing in Ontario. I would like you, if you could, as clearly and succinctly as possible, to enunciate some of these new directions so that we would all know, and hopefully all of Ontario would know, what these new directions are.

Hon Ms Gigantes: I wish all of Ontario could know; I think that would be very helpful. I think there are two main goals. One is to streamline and make more accountable the process of non-profit development. We are engaged in the only major non-profit development going on in Canada right now. The initiation under the previous government was one in which the ministry learned a lot, but I think there are a number of changes that reasonably should be put in place. Certainly, the consultation we had with interested members of the public, with the building industry, with the providers in non-profit housing co-ops and other non-profits was very helpful to us in terms of figuring out the ways to make sure we were bringing accountability to all elements of the system. That is something we're working on in the design for the Jobs Ontario Homes program. We hope to be able to report the progress on elements of those changes over the next while.

The other important direction was to give better acknowledgement and better recognition within the program to the maturity of the non-profit housing sector, which is often called the third sector in housing. Essentially, that means that having developed and provided housing for thousands of people in this province, either in the co-op form or in the non-profit form, often through municipal non-profits, the sectors are now capable of helping build guidelines for the administration and operation in an accountability framework that can mean we are not looking at every line of every budget they're operating, that we can discuss with them ways of building in incentives to the way we provide financing for operations, for example, and for their methods of providing ongoing maintenance and renovation, so that each non-profit corporation or co-op has more control over its own spending within a system which provides incentives for cost-effectiveness.

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The sector has been very anxious to participate in this kind of discussion. It makes sense to them that we would be moving to a system in which they are treated like mature organizations and respected for the kind of work they do within their own sector to improve the cost-effectiveness of operations and to improve the very programs that are operated within non-profit and co-op organizations.

That's a slow process, because it means that while we want to be able to report in a sharper, clearer fashion on what it is we're providing financing for and how those moneys are directed within the third sector and to be able to account to this Legislature, to be able to account to the Provincial Auditor, to be able to account to the public about how the non-profit system works, we also want to be able to loosen the controls that are minute-by-minute, day-by-day, line-by-line kinds of controls under which the sector has operated up to now. I think we're making some progress there. Those will be developing kinds of changes.

You're aware that, for example, over the last couple of years we put a moratorium on replacement reserves. As that moratorium gets lifted at the beginning of the next fiscal year, we'd like to develop a new system of dealing with replacement reserves which provides more flexibility for the sectors and better opportunity for the sectors themselves -- either the co-op sector or the non-profit sector -- to participate in the administration of priority projects, designing the system that's going to provide good maintenance in non-profit and co-op housing over the years to come and to make more effective use of the moneys that get devoted to that in the sense that they've been very constrained about how they could hold those moneys, what level of income they could generate on those moneys in terms of investments.

We'd like to loosen that system up to provide that they can make better use of the moneys and we'd also like to provide them with much more control over the system of replacement reserves as a whole. That's in a context in which we will continue to have public accountability and accountability legislatively and accountability to the auditor about how that reserve system works and what it gets used for.

Ms Harrington: One brief supplementary: I think it's very important what you've said, that we get the message out there that we're streamlining the cost and the times involved in development, and also the recognition of the sector. Would that entail licensing of some sort to the sector?

Hon Ms Gigantes: Licensing?

Ms Harrington: Accreditation of development consultants?

Hon Ms Gigantes: No, we haven't thought of setting up a system of accreditation, but the development consultants in Ontario have started their own association and I expect they'll be setting up their own kinds of standards for professional operations within that.

We have not given serious consideration to setting up an accreditation program at this stage. I don't know that in terms of what would be involved it would be worthwhile. Dan might want to speak to this subject. It's not something we have given serious consideration to.

Ms Harrington: Maybe we can get back to it later.

The other point I just wanted to draw one step forward from this is that the whole system of ongoing management of the units will be the focus in the future, I would think. So that's part of your new direction as well? You didn't mention that, but maybe we'll have a chance later on to talk more about that.

Hon Ms Gigantes: I very much hope that after Jobs Ontario Homes there will be another development program, because I see a continuing need for a continuing flow of new units, but the ongoing maintenance and management of the existing units is now a very major task and it's one certainly that the new program design is intended to address.

The Chair: I think we've pretty well come to that round. I will pick up Mr Lessard in the next round. Ms Poole.

Ms Poole: Just before I go on to the line of questioning for this particular section, I would like to ask the ministry if they have information that was requested by the member for Algoma-Manitoulin yesterday. I think that Mike Brown asked if you could provide the average rate of rent increase, adjusted for inflation, over the last five years.

Hon Ms Gigantes: We did in fact. I think you were chatting with Margaret when we were discussing that. Crom described to us what was contained in the two sheets that were circulated. Do you have a copy of that?

Ms Poole: Probably.

Hon Ms Gigantes: Rather than going through it all over again, if you had questions you wanted to ask about it, Crom Sparling, who is the director of strategic planning for the ministry, I'm sure would be glad to chat with you about it.

Ms Poole: Okay, after I've had an opportunity to take a look at that, I may have more questions. I'd like to go back to the subject that we were conversing about when we ended yesterday, and that is the shelter allowances versus the non-profit program. At that time I didn't have a copy of the Clayton Research study, but I have since obtained a copy. I'm trying to rationalize the figures that are used in the Clayton Research study as opposed to what I see in the estimates book.

I'm looking on page 92, vote 1702, under the Ontario Housing Corp, "Operating." I'm looking at the upper right-hand side, where it talks about the various rent supplement programs. We've estimated that, for instance, for commercial, and my understanding is that that would be agreements with private landlords in existing buildings, that's a 50-50 funding split between the provincial and federal government.

Hon Ms Gigantes: No, we have some provincial-only commercial agreements.

Ms Poole: Are the bulk of them federal-provincial split?

Hon Ms Gigantes: Yes, they would be.

Ms Poole: We calculated, using the figures given in the estimates book, that would be the cost of $2,456 as an annual per household subsidy. That's an average. Then we went down the list: community sponsored, we calculated $2,572; the cooperative tenure support, $2,652; the federal-provincial, $2,426. Then we go to the provincial, which is 100% provincial funding, and that's $6,778.

Hon Ms Gigantes: Yes.

Ms Poole: Now, if you take those particular figures and then you compare them with what they're suggesting in the Clayton study, which is $114 per month, which I think comes out to $1,368 per household per year, I'm getting a sense of cognitive dissonance, where the puzzle isn't matching.

Hon Ms Gigantes: That's right.

Ms Poole: I'm having two different sets of figures, and I'm wondering where the difference is coming in. I wonder if you could give us some background on this.

Hon Ms Gigantes: You're quite right. We did discuss these figures yesterday. You may have been in the House speaking at the time when we did. What I pointed out yesterday was that in fact if you take the Clayton figures, what we're talking about is providing assistance to households which are not currently assisted. They have taken a given amount of money and distributed it over the number of households in core need not currently in receipt of housing assistance, either through RGI or through social assistance. When it gets divided up, it comes to $114 a month. That does not purport, and nowhere in the Clayton report does it suggest that's going to lift households out of core need, which is what our programs do.

In fact, the programs that you see, supported either through social assistance or through these rent supplement programs or through the rent-geared-to-income program, are programs which are designed to take people out of core need in the housing market. The Clayton report doesn't have that as a goal, doesn't purport to have that as a goal. It's simply a way of providing an alternative to the extension of non-profit housing and a redistribution of that money.

Ms Poole: Just for a moment, if you look at the different figures that are being used, I think the Clayton report uses 279,000 households in core need, and I believe yesterday the figure the ministry was using was 330,000.

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Hon Ms Gigantes: They used 270,000 and our current estimate I don't have right at hand. Can somebody help us with that? Yesterday I talked about 330,000 and I believe somebody corrected me yesterday evening. Shirley, did you correct me yesterday evening?

Interjection.

Hon Ms Gigantes: Can't hear you.

Ms Poole: That was the number the deputy mentioned yesterday, apparently.

Mr Burns: While the staff search for the breakdown, the federal core need methodology reaches households that are owners as well as renters. It also reaches households whose fundamental problem is not affordability but physical adequacy. So the federal number is one large number and within it there is a number of renter households whose fundamental problem is affordability. That subgroup is the group that Clayton was looking at in particular.

Mrs Marland: Could you explain "physical adequacy" in your answer?

Mr Burns: That's a federal assessment of people, for example, without indoor plumbing. There are still a few households in Ontario which dwell in places without indoor plumbing.

Mrs Marland: It's physical adequacy of the building that you're talking about.

Mr Burns: Yes, that's right. It's not a characteristic of the people.

Hon Ms Gigantes: It would also include the adequacy given the household, compared to the household. If you --

Mr Burns: Another piece is overcrowding. That's right. So there are different components to it, but Clayton was examining the subgroup who are renters with an affordability problem. So you have to unpack the federal number to its components. It's somewhere over there, because I've read it. We have it.

Ms Poole: Here it comes.

Mr Burns: I can't find it in my own stuff. That's as in 1991.

Ms Poole: I think Clayton Research used 1991 figures, so that would be comparable.

Mr Burns: Core need problems: affordability 237,000; adequacy 18,000; suitability, which is overcrowding, 23,000; and then a number of people who have combined problems. That gives you something over 300,000 as the universe. But he was looking at the affordability part of it.

Ms Poole: Now, the 279,000 that Clayton Research Associates took a look at, were they including people who were already on social assistance?

Hon Ms Gigantes: Some of them would be, because there are people on social assistance who are paying over 30% of their income, in the private sector, for rent.

Ms Poole: I understand the idea that you're working with two different types of households, you're working with different material, but there's still an enormous difference -- for instance, even within the ministry figures, I find it quite an astonishing difference between provincial rent supplement where it's 100% provincially funded, which is $6,778, compared to where there's a federal-provincial split, which is $2,428. That's $4,000 more per household per year. That's quite an astonishing difference.

Mr Burns: The federal-provincial program goes back a fair amount of time. The provincial program was introduced in the market conditions of three or four years ago at any scale and focused on those markets where the vacancy rate and affordability were the worst problem -- in other words, the highest-cost markets. Within that, they had a subgroup of quite expensive individual pieces.

So the result of all those characteristics produces a provincial program whose costs are significantly different than the federal-provincial one, which is spread all over the province, not concentrated and which started its rent arrangements in a whole series of different marketplaces, not just the ones of two, three and four years ago.

Hon Ms Gigantes: The contracts can be for extended years, two-, three-, five-year contracts with a private landlord. So some of them will be set at a time when rents are high, as Dan points out, and some will be set at a time when rents are relatively low.

As far as I understand it, the account that you would see here is only the provincial side of the federalprovincial program. Am I correct in reading the estimate that way? For example, in the column in the right-hand side, upper corner, where you're looking at federalprovincial and it gives you $5.103 million, that I think is just the provincial line. So you double that for the total cost, which brings it very much in line with what you're talking about under the provincial program. Some of the other programs are different arrangements altogether.

Mr Burns: Right. The federal-provincial program is still less expensive when you account for the federal dollars, but it's not two and a half to one.

Ms Poole: I assume the Ministry of Housing has done an analysis of the Clayton Research proposal. Could you highlight some of the different methodology used than perhaps the Ministry of Housing is using, because even granted what you've said about the different clientele and looking at things such as overcrowding and looking at people in homes who own their homes who are in need, and lifting people out of core need as opposed to just kind of putting the finger in the dike, I still can't quite get a grip on why there's such an enormous difference.

Hon Ms Gigantes: There's no difference. We have no question about their methodology.

Ms Poole: You're looking at entirely different apples and oranges?

Hon Ms Gigantes: That's right. We have no questions with their methodology. I think what's important to understand is what it is they seek to do in the report, and it's a very limited goal, which is to take a given amount of money and distribute it among core need households on an even basis. That's essentially all they've done. It does not purport to provide what is provided in what they see as the alternative, which is the assistance that we provide through non-profit housing. Dan?

Mr Burns: Sorry, I was exchanging signals with Mr Sparling.

We've obviously read and reflected on the study, but you asked whether we had done an analysis, which is a particular use of words, whether we'd gone back --

Ms Poole: Either informally or formally.

Mr Burns: We have not, as far as I know, sat down with Greg Lampert and Clayton and carefully gone through all his building blocks and looked at alternative ways of looking at it, which is what you would have to do to do a full analysis. What we have done is had the report reviewed by members of our staff who are familiar with the discourse on shelter allowances, and had in effect some work done out of that only; that is, looking at it and just thinking about it a little bit, which leads to the conclusions the minister just enunciated.

To go beyond that and say, if you took the view that you should take these households, move them all out of core need and that should be done in real market conditions and not on arbitrary assumptions as in the report, as to what would that cost -- I'm speculating that's the line of reasoning you're following -- we have not done that kind of analytical work.

Ms Poole: The other thing that came to mind when I was reading their report is that you already have existing non-profit housing and I would make the assumption, whether erroneous or not, that the Conservative Party is not talking about emptying those buildings in order to give them some sort of rent supplement in privately existing --

Hon Ms Gigantes: Or getting rid of the existing rent supplement program or getting rid of the massive subsidy that goes to housing needs through the social assistance system, which was $2.5 billion a year last year; it'll be more this year.

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Ms Poole: So what the minister referred to yesterday as an add-on.

Hon Ms Gigantes: Yes.

Ms Poole: Are we basically then talking, say, the 20,000 for the Jobs Ontario Homes program that have not to this date been constructed?

Hon Ms Gigantes: That was the approach that was taken.

Ms Poole: I think you have to factor out what is already there to a large degree, certainly as far as non-profit housing is concerned, because that is there. It's in place. It isn't going to be changed. What we're looking at are future ways of delivering non-profit housing, or delivering shelter, more specifically, and making sure that it both meets the needs and is cost-effective.

One of the concerns I have that was actually pointed out in the auditor's report in this regard is that we do have a significant number of vacancies already existing in our non-profit housing, and this tends to be more in what they call the market rent units, because quite frankly nobody wants to pay that market rent right now.

Hon Ms Gigantes: It's only in the market rent units.

Ms Poole: That's right, but we have a particular problem because we have units sitting empty and yet we have people on waiting lists.

Hon Ms Gigantes: Yes.

Ms Poole: Yet the provincial government would not want to spend the extra amount of subsidy it would take in order to give them either a shallow or a deep subsidy. Has the Ministry of Housing --

Hon Ms Gigantes: It's not just a question of money. It's also a question of the mixed-income goal, which has been the goal of non-profit housing in Ontario.

Ms Poole: Yes, and I certainly comprehend that, but the question I was going to ask the minister is, given the fact that we do still have thousands and thousands of people on the waiting lists who are desperate for housing, and given the fact that we have these vacant units right now at the same time as we're going ahead and building 20,000 more, has the ministry come up with any type of strategy for dealing with those vacant units?

Hon Ms Gigantes: I'll tell you an interesting story before I answer the general question. I was in Hamilton just over a week ago making an announcement about the social housing energy renovation program, and learned from the manager of Paradise Road development, I think it was called, that the seven units of market rent housing which had remained vacant for some time had been filled recently, because he was able to tell people that the renovations being done under the energy retrofit would lower what had been $500- to $600-a-month heating bills during the winter period. So some relief will come that way for some market units.

There is a vacancy rate overall, as I recollect it, of about 8% currently among all the market units that exist in the system. This is higher than we would like to see and it is something that the ministry is tackling directly in terms of trying to come up with the best ideas about how to address the problem.

It is a problem in two senses. It is a problem in the sense that the financing of non-profit housing developments includes an expectation of a certain level of rent from the market units. If that level of rent is not forthcoming because there are vacant units, then that throws out the repayment rate on the mortgages. The second problem is that we're not achieving our goal of having mixed-income development, which for policy reasons we have chosen to do.

Peter, would you like to comment on the thoughts of the ministry at this stage? I shouldn't say "thoughts" as if it were so vague.

Mr Peter Schafft: Thank you. I'm the --

The Chair: Just a moment, Mr Schafft. Do you wish to pursue this line of questioning? You have five more minutes.

Ms Poole: Yes, I actually would like to know if you have any plans -- maybe, that is better than "thoughts" -- for dealing with the 8% vacancy.

The Chair: We knew you had thoughts, Peter, but we want more specific --

Ms Poole: We want concrete plans, agendas.

Mr Schafft: We've lots of thoughts and some concrete plans. Obviously, the minister is very correct. In the program, what we are attempting to do is to have an appropriate mix within the portfolio. Normally, non-profits do have what we call targeting plans. The plans actually allow for that overall plan to have an integrated approach between those that are on the deep core, the shallow core and then the market component.

With what's happening in the different marketplaces, in some cases obviously you are getting market vacancies. What we're trying to encourage with people is to have that flexibility. Rather than keeping units vacant, you have a temporary plan to house people who are on the RGI side in those units. At the same time, we're also trying to assist in providing the expertise, to say that maybe it's a marketing problem as well. Some of the groups perhaps may not be marketing the units to their best advantage, so when it's also many questions about marketing ability, giving them the expertise or tips or guidelines as to what to do.

The other point is really a future aspect of making sure you know exactly what's going on in the marketplace. You can be aware and anticipate. If in fact you see things happening in the marketplace, you start reacting to those early on so you can come up with a plan. I guess the key words for the ministry at the moment are, "Be flexible, try to work it through the piece and try to minimize any losses in revenue."

Ms Poole: I actually have no problem at all with the Ministry of Housing being flexible. I think, in this condition, that's exactly what's called for.

You mentioned that there are temporary plans to house RGI tenants in the market units until such time as the market units would be appropriately filled.

Hon Ms Gigantes: This is not comprehensive. This is selective.

Ms Poole: Having appreciated that comment from the minister, none the less, I'm wondering how flexible you are going to be. For instance, in a particular project where it is suitable for moving in some additional RGI tenants, do you have an outside time limit for when you would insist that they revert to market rents?

Mr Schafft: I think basically what you want to do is attempt at all opportunities. One of the other major factors of course is what is happening at the market rent level that's being charged, how it is comparable to what is going on in the sector as well. If you're excessively high or whatever rate, you might want to consider that again as one of the marketing areas.

We would encourage the groups to try to attempt to do all the other activities first, the marketing, to see if they are competitive normally within the marketplace, to encourage all the applicants around, to encourage the vehicles of exposure, really the marketing aspect, to any agencies, the private sector, whatever opportunities there are. Really, it is as a last resort in a sense also. It's not a long-term objective but a short-term objective, so they can work on a plan to ultimately get back to their original targeting plan. But on an interim basis, they can do some housing of RGI tenants, yes.

Ms Poole: So the flexibility of that particular project will probably depend on their financial viability, how much they can reduce rents and still meet their targets.

Mr Schafft: Yes. Each regional office works with the individual non-profits to say what is best for them. To have a blanket approach, to say this is the only answer across the province, would be inappropriate, so it's specifically directed towards the individual non-profit.

Hon Ms Gigantes: I was very impressed in Hamilton. The project manager is a relatively new project manager and had taken on the task of aggressively marketing those units, including making it clear to the prospective households who would be tenants that there was going to be a change in the heating and that the costs were going to go down, and that filled up the units.

Ms Poole: One last comment on that particular one. It really, really bothers me to see those units sit vacant, and I suspect it bothers most people, particularly when at the same time you're going to fairly significant cost to build new units, yet you see vacant units while our subsidized waiting list grows and people are in desperate need.

Hon Ms Gigantes: It is anathema.

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Ms Poole: I am pleased to see -- and I'm not the critic for Housing any more; there is a God in the heavens -- as an opposition person that the Ministry of Housing is trying to redress that and is showing flexibility. I certainly think that's what's needed in the situation.

The Chair: Thank you, Ms Poole. Mrs Marland.

Hon Ms Gigantes: Mr Chair, I could perhaps, as Ms Marland begins, indicate that we've checked and the information on a project-by-project or development-by-development refinancing scheme is available. We will produce it for her. There will be no problem.

Mrs Marland: Great, thank you.

Hon Ms Gigantes: You're most welcome.

Mrs Marland: That last was 25 minutes. You know what I think?

The Chair: Mrs Marland, it was 25 minutes because Ms Poole patiently watched you take five additional minutes, which I then gave --

Mrs Marland: That's what I was going to mention.

The Chair: -- to the governing party, and which meant Ms Poole was entitled to 25 minutes. It's the responsibility of the Chair to make sure all members are treated fairly, and thank you for allowing me to inform all members of what I had done.

Mrs Marland: That's good, thank you. I think what I'm going to do is, I'm worried I won't get these all on the record, so I think I may wade into some --

Hon Ms Gigantes: Go ahead.

Mrs Marland: -- and give you copies, as long as you can assure me I'll get the answers.

Hon Ms Gigantes: Well, we have to know the questions first.

Mrs Marland: Right. All right, I want to get to the more interesting ones, but anyway -- the estimates show an expenditure of $81.5 million for 24,530 units in the rent supplement program, or an average cost of $3,322 each. This is obviously far cheaper than new non-profit units but is still much higher than the average for a full shelter allowance program, such as that proposed by Clayton.

The reason is partly that landlords in the past have had incentive to enrol buildings in rent supplement only where they had vacancy problems, for example, high-rent buildings. Providing shelter allowance funds directly to tenants, allowing them to select any accommodation they want in their price range would eliminate this problem, cutting even this low program cost in half.

What is the minister afraid of? Why will she not at least take up the landlords on their long-standing offer of 20,000 average-rent units to add to the existing rent supplement program and allow an independent evaluation after one year to compare both the long- and short-term efficiency of shelter allowances versus non-profit housing?

Minister, apparently that offer was made two or three years ago, before either you or I were in these portfolios, so it will be interesting to get that answer.

Hon Ms Gigantes: If I could, I'd like to answer the question.

Mrs Marland: Okay.

Hon Ms Gigantes: May I?

The Chair: Oh, by all means.

Hon Ms Gigantes: All right. I want Ms Marland to understand that the offer of landlords is one that is continuous. Every day, even at my home, there are calls from landlords who are anxious to have the Ministry of Housing pick up some of the expense that would be involved in having tenants with low income rent their units. That's not an issue.

One can arrange a program like that, one can do it as has been suggested in the Clayton report, one can do it in a different kind of way, for example, the way it has been done in the Ministry of Housing, adding up to $81 million-plus for this year. There are a number of ways you can do it.

The question is, do you want to do it? Do you want to take moneys that would otherwise be invested in the creation of new non-profit housing -- and it is an investment -- and eliminate that program or that portion of the program, and devote it to rent payments in the private market?

If you do that, you pay a price. You pay the price of not creating new affordable supply. You also pay the price, if you follow the Clayton method, of providing a subsidy of $114 a month to a couple of hundred thousand, almost 300,000 households, which will then get spent in the private market, where those households can find a unit. They won't all find a suitable unit and they certainly won't find a unit that takes them out of core need in housing. These are two different questions.

Mrs Marland: I guess there's probably a high level of frustration for the minister with my questions and there's a high level of frustration for me in asking them, because we both come from a different ideology, and I think that we're never going to win that discussion about what it is you're doing and what it is I'm asking you about.

So I think I'll just stick to the questions where I need information from the ministry, because you and I ideologically are poles apart. I respect your choice and I hope that you respect mine, but we'll never agree, so we might as well deal with the questions where I need information.

Hon Ms Gigantes: All right, that's fair enough. I just want to make it clear that I truly believe that to try to study cost-effectiveness and compare cost-effectiveness of two totally different programs with two totally different objectives is not possible. There is no laboratory which is going to make these things comparable. They are totally different programs with totally different objectives.

Mrs Marland: Okay. Given the difference in costs, based on the information that you have, how does the minister justify her actions under the expenditure control plan of cancelling the 600 new rent supplement units for 1993-94, which is apparently vote 1702 on page 94, while continuing far more costly non-profit units?

Could the minister please provide us with copies of the following: all studies in the ministry's possession which assess shelter allowance policy options, programs costs etc, for both Ontario and other jurisdictions. Now, I remember asking that question last year and the year before, and I remember that you said you had studies on shelter allowance programs in other jurisdictions. So we're just asking you for your current ones, because we actually never received the other ones.

Hon Ms Gigantes: You did not receive them?

Mrs Marland: No.

Hon Ms Gigantes: We can certainly provide you with studies. We have not undertaken a huge study within the ministry, but we certainly have access to studies which I think would be of interest to you.

Mrs Marland: Thank you. The thing is that I guess we feel if you're assessing shelter allowance policy options and programs costs for Ontario and other jurisdictions, you must be doing that in order to decide that it isn't what you want to do. Could we also have all studies in the ministry's possession that assess the feasibility of removing or phasing out rent controls, both in Ontario and other jurisdictions?

In March the Ontario Housing Corp gave its non-union staff who earned less than $63,525 a 2% raise and additional merit increases up to 3%. When my leader, Mike Harris, raised this matter in the Legislature in May, the minister defended the 5% hikes for certain staff of the Ontario Housing Corp. Even though the minister supported the Ontario Housing Corp's decision to award 5% pay increases, the Premier said he believed the raises were "inappropriate," and the Ontario Housing Corp board was "out to lunch." Those are quotes, by the way, attributable to the Premier about the 5% increases of the Ontario Housing Corp.

Hon Ms Gigantes: Can I just comment on that very briefly?

Mrs Marland: Can I just finish the question --

Hon Ms Gigantes: Yes, sure.

Mrs Marland: -- because otherwise we're going to --

The Chair: I'd prefer you finish the question and let the minister respond.

Hon Ms Gigantes: As long as we don't lap into another question before I get a chance to reply.

Mrs Marland: I think we have an option about how we do this, and I just want to finish this.

The Chair: We're trying to help each other here, so please proceed, Mrs Marland.

Mrs Marland: It was the Premier who said he believed the raises were inappropriate and the Ontario Housing Corp board was out to lunch. Indeed, last week the Bob Rae government passed Bill 48, which will require the payroll costs to be reduced by 5% across the broader public sector. Unless other sectoral agreements are reached, employees will be required to take 12 days leave without pay per year.

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Minister, do you believe, to quote your own words that, "The Ontario Housing Corp board is operating in a fiscally responsible manner and in keeping with the government's measures to lower their provincial debt"?

In recent months, there have been ads in government job publications for open competitions at the Ontario Housing Corp. This is very strange when almost all job competitions are now restricted to civil servants in order to accommodate those who are losing their jobs because of the expenditure control plan. Can the minister tell us why it is business as usual at the Ontario Housing Corp? Why is the --

Hon Ms Gigantes: I won't get a chance to answer.

Mrs Marland: Let me just finish.

The Chair: We're going to have another day of this, Minister, so we have lots of time.

Mrs Marland: Why is the development assistance for social housing grants considered a capital expenditure on vote --

Hon Ms Gigantes: Could I answer the first question?

The Chair: Minister -- excuse me, please.

Mrs Marland: Go ahead.

The Chair: Minister, I think Mrs Marland indicated that she'd like to get as many of her questions on the record and then --

Hon Ms Gigantes: Yes, but --

The Chair: Minister, we'll let Mrs Marland get her questions on the record. This is very helpful in the front end of the process. We still have four hours to --

Hon Ms Gigantes: When do I get a chance to respond to Mrs Marland?

The Chair: When the Chair recognizes you. Please proceed.

Hon Ms Gigantes: When will that be?

The Chair: When you're recognized.

Mrs Marland, finish your questions, then I will ask the minister, who's obviously expressing an interest to be recognized. But I would just let Mrs Marland -- she's only got another page left -- get her questions on. I know you're making notes here so that you haven't lost track of the questions.

Mrs Marland: I'll give this to the deputy.

The Chair: Do you have many more questions to read into the record, Mrs Marland?

Mrs Marland: No. Why is development assistance for social housing grants considered a capital expenditure? It's vote 1702, item 16, $1,045,000. Shouldn't this be considered an operating expenditure? In my own community, the Peel Non-Profit Housing Corp recently delayed approving its 1993 budget until it can appeal to the Minister of Housing the provincial government's decision to put a moratorium on its contributions to reserve funds.

In 1992, as a cost-cutting measure, the Ontario government put a two-year moratorium on these contributions. Peel Non-Profit Housing Corp is concerned about how to finance the future maintenance of its 45 buildings. Over the past three years, the province's contribution to the corporation's reserve funds has dropped as follows: 1991, $1.28 million; 1992, $363,000; 1993, zero.

I understand that the ministry does intend to reintroduce the fund contribution next year but that it will be limited by 10% of the previous maximum allowed. As a result of its concerns, the board of the Peel Non-Profit Housing Corp may be reluctant to approve new projects, even though the waiting list for assisted housing in Peel has grown by 29% in the past year to more than 11,000 households on their waiting list.

If the provincial government shifts responsibility for social housing maintenance from the province to local governments, resulting in an increase in property taxes, there could be an erosion of political and public support for the housing provided by Peel Non-Profit Housing Corp. Already there is considerable concern about social housing concentration in Mississauga.

Minister, why are you bringing more units of non-profit housing on stream if housing corporations cannot afford to maintain their existing stock? Is it not vital that we maintain the public's investment in the housing that has already been built?

When we talk about the Peel Non-Profit Housing Corp, we talk about the first non-profit housing corporation in Canada and today by far the largest. All of their projects are highly successful, extremely well managed and all of the people who live in those buildings are very happy. Our concern is that if the maintenance is not affordable, other than putting it on the property tax base or being delayed, then what has been a very successful program under that corporation will be at risk.

What was the total cost of the ministry's advertising campaign regarding changes to rent control law following the passage of Bill 121? Also, could I please have the cost breakdowns for each medium: television, radio and print.

I have some questions concerning vote 1704, the rent regulation program. On page 85, your chart of the rent control applications workload shows that at the end of fiscal 1992-93, there was a significant increase in the number of applications from both tenants and landlords that were outstanding at the year's end. Outstanding tenant's applications increased from 3,764 at the end of 1991-92 to 4,507 at the end of 1992-93. Landlords' applications increased from 475 remaining at the end of 1991-92 to 1,275 remaining at the end of 1992-93. By the end of the current fiscal year, the number of applications from tenants will have risen even further, to 5,007.

What is the ministry doing to ensure that there is not a backlog of rent control applications? Looking further down the road, can we anticipate that the number of outstanding applications will drop? I have heard that landlords faced a tenfold increase in the amount of paperwork for transitional applications under the Rent Control Act, 1992, compared to the paperwork required under the Residential Rent Regulation Act, 1986, which was the law before Bill 4.

Minister, is an increase in paperwork contributing to a backlog of the rent control applications and, if so, is there some way this paperwork can be streamlined to benefit all parties: landlords, tenants and the ministry employees?

Minister, in 1991 your predecessor, Mr Cooke, removed the permanent residency requirement for social housing; in other words, people who are in Ontario and in need of assisted housing but do not have permanent resident status, for instance, applicants for refugee status who are awaiting hearings to assess their applications, are now eligible for social housing. I have been told that because of the point system used to determine placement in social housing, people who do not have permanent resident status are more likely to be placed in social housing than permanent residents, many of whom have been on housing waiting lists for years.

We need to know: Is this actually happening? If so, what is being done to ensure that permanent residents who are in need of assisted housing are being treated equitably?

The Minister of Health is considering changes that would limit the eligibility of OHIP to Ontarians who have permanent resident status. Does your ministry, the Ministry of Housing, intend to review its policy on residency status?

The Chair: I think, Mrs Marland, you meant to say that the Ministry of Health is considering restricting benefits to persons with non-resident status. Is that not correct?

Mrs Marland: No. The Ministry of Health is considering changes that would limit the eligibility for OHIP coverage to people who are permanent residents of Ontario.

Ms Poole: It's restricting to instead of restricting of it.

The Chair: I apologize. I wasn't clear on that.

Hon Ms Gigantes: It doesn't matter. There's no point in our speculating on that.

Mrs Marland: What, on the OHIP thing?

The Chair: Mrs Marland, you have completed your 20 minutes. We're going to return, but I have to adjourn because we're called to the House for a vote. We will reconvene as soon as the vote is taken. This committee stands momentarily adjourned.

The committee recessed at 1710 and resumed at 1732.

The Chair: As I recall, Mrs Marland, you had just completed your 20-minute cycle. The minister has registered with me a concern.

Hon Ms Gigantes: Mr Chair, I need to understand how we are proceeding here. When Mrs Marland began her questions, I had indicated that I was prepared to answer them as she went along. However, under your guidance, what she did was use her complete rotation in order to place all her questions.

As I don't have an allocation of time on this committee to respond, what that would mean, in effect, is that all the answers that can be given to the questions which she raised could only be given outside this committee. First of all, I need to understand, what is your purpose in the process we're following?

The Chair: My purpose is to act as a Chair, and it's set out in the standing orders. You'd be familiar with that. Your second question was?

Hon Ms Gigantes: My second question is, do you intend to proceed so that every time it's Mrs Marland's turn, or any other member's, for that matter, when there are questions raised by that member, there's no opportunity for the minister to respond and therefore any responses have to be given outside this committee?

The Chair: The Chair has no real opinion in the matter. I am guided by the wishes of the committee. You are not a member of the committee.

Hon Ms Gigantes: That's right.

The Chair: You're here at the request of the committee and at the pleasure of the committee. The House leaders have confirmed the ministries we have chosen. When the committee chose to act in rotation, it's by time allocation. It has been the custom and the understanding of this committee that the member can use that time as they see fit.

If I might be helpful to the minister with her quandary, I have seen occasions where ministers have utilized their rotation from the governing party to clarify points that they feel impelled to respond to. But if Mrs Marland chooses to spend her time putting questions on the record and does not provide you with sufficient time to answer them, that is her conscious choice. The detail in which you wish to respond to any of her questions, in writing, is entirely a matter between you and your staff and your assurances to the committee that the responses will be forthcoming.

That has been the process, and I don't believe Mrs Marland is going to take an hour of her time reading questions into the record, but if she chose in the front end of the process to put on the record those questions so that later today or next week when we reconvene that you and your staff will have time to reflect on those questions and then give a fuller answer, then I'm sure time will be allocated, but the Chair is guided by the committee's desire to divide its time by caucus and, therefore, each caucus gets to use its time as it sees fit.

Mrs Marland: I just wish to make a brief comment to try to be helpful in addressing the concerns of the minister. Before I started asking my questions, I asked if I could go ahead and go through them and could I have the written answers, at which time the minister and the deputy both said yes.

Hon Ms Gigantes: No. No, in fact, Margaret --

The Chair: Minister, please. If only out of courtesy, let's listen to one at a time.

Mrs Marland: We didn't have a problem last year. Last year I tabled questions, frankly, because we were running out of time. I think the minister's concern is that her answers don't become part of the record. I have noticed in other estimates and in other committees, including the public accounts committee, that the answers can be tabled with the clerk, addressed to the Chair through the clerk, and every person on the committee receives a copy of those answers. Am I correct, Tonia?

Clerk of the Committee (Ms Tonia Grannum): Yes.

The Chair: The record will show the clerk confirms that. However, if I can just get this back to the initial point, which is that the minister wants to know how we are proceeding, and that's a fair question. I suspect, Mrs Marland, if you can assure the minister that there'll be time for her to provide responses, that that was part of your approach to these estimates, she did want to know if she would be given time while it's allocated to you to respond. I think that's a reasonable request. I don't know if we have to dwell on that point too terribly long; the committee determines the procedures here. It's not negotiated with the minister.

Mrs Marland: I wouldn't have gone ahead and read my questions into the record if I hadn't had the assurance that I would have received the answers in writing if we were out of time. In fact, I have furnished the minister's staff with a complete written copy in order to facilitate their being able to give the answers.

The Chair: I did not know that. Had you informed the Chair that you had given them a copy, I might have suggested that if you're going to ensure that your questions are read into the record, then I believe we should give the minister some time to respond. I thought the reason for reading into the record was that you didn't have a copy to give to the staff. That would only be more helpful.

Mrs Marland: I gave them my copy after I read it.

The Chair: All right. I'll recognize the minister in a moment, but the Chair really would like to return to the process of estimates. I don't think we have the difficulty here as much as we need to ensure that there is --

Hon Ms Gigantes: Mr Chair, if I might.

The Chair: Yes, Madam Minister.

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Hon Ms Gigantes: Thank you. Mrs Marland suggests that I was agreeable to her reading the questions into the record, tabling with us a set of written questions and providing written responses. She misunderstood. I'm not agreeable to that.

I am agreeable to her reading questions as long as when there is time on her allocation or her party's allocation, I have a chance to respond to them on the record. I have never heard of any other way of putting material on the record. And I am not prepared to undertake that staff of the Ministry of Housing will sit down and have to write essays in response to Mrs Marland's --

Mrs Marland: You did it last year.

Hon Ms Gigantes: Yes, but I'm not prepared this year to do that because I think the way this is proceeding is really to put in question the purpose of a committee. The purpose of a committee surely is to ask questions and have some responses. It is not to set a written test for ministry staff to which they have to reply in essay form. I want Mrs Marland to understand that very clearly.

The Chair: Madam Minister, I must reinforce the notion that you are here at the pleasure of the committee and you're obligated by the House leaders and the Legislative Assembly Act to come and be prepared to respond in the manner in which this committee asks you to.

Hon Ms Gigantes: I am.

The Chair: Your recent expression of intransigence --

Hon Ms Gigantes: No, no intransigence.

The Chair: Look, Madam Minister, I wish you wouldn't put me into an awkward position here. If you have all of a sudden this year determined you wish to do your estimates differently --

Hon Ms Gigantes: No, last year I was permitted time to respond to questions during the estimates. I'm quite prepared to have the staff prepare written responses for material which we don't have available here. When we have that material available, when I can answer the questions, then we are entering a totally new process. If we're going to have --

The Chair: I'm going to cut you off, Madam Minister, because you're repeating yourself. This committee is not prepared to be advised how it orders up its business.

Hon Ms Gigantes: I'm not prepared to have you tell me that this is a written exam.

The Chair: No one's said that. Those are your words.

Hon Ms Gigantes: That's what it amounts to.

The Chair: We were soliciting your assistance in our responsibility to examine --

Hon Ms Gigantes: We can test this.

The Chair: -- Madam Minister, please -- to examine the estimates of your ministry.

Hon Ms Gigantes: I'm here for that purpose. I'm not here to listen to questions be read into the record and not be allowed to respond.

The Chair: Madam Minister, please. You have the capacity to be courteous to this committee. We know that. You have expressed that in the past.

Hon Ms Gigantes: It's a mutual obligation, Mr Chair.

The Chair: I am guided by the standing orders of this committee and by the full authority of this committee and I am sorry that I have to constantly reinforce that with you in this presence.

Hon Ms Gigantes: We can test that, Mr Chair, if you're prepared to move ahead in this manner. I'm just telling you my understanding of the purpose of my being here. Otherwise, why should I be here?

The Chair: Madam Minister, perhaps you enjoy being argumentative. I have indicated, as the Chair, that we are prepared to proceed. I have indicated that there are opportunities to pacify your concerns. You insist on arguing this.

Mr Norm Jamison (Norfolk): Point of order, Mr Chair. I feel, as a member, that information coming from this committee should be a public record and this is one of the purposes for the committee. I think the minister has made it clear to you --

The Chair: What's the point of order, Mr Jamison?

Mr Jamison: That the answers to the questions should be allowed time to be answered verbally here in committee for that purpose. I believe that is one of the very relevant points about committee work, to make sure the public record is served and the questions are answered here so the public has access to those very vital and concerning questions.

The Chair: I'm waiting for your point of order.

Mr Jamison: Each member of this committee --

The Chair: You're out of order, Mr Jamison. I asked you three times to place what your point of order was. If you wish to debate this issue, ask me to debate the issue, but that's not a point of order.

Hon Ms Gigantes: Mr Chairman, it is a point of order.

Ms Poole: Mr Chair, on a point of clarification.

The Chair: Yes, a point of clarification.

Ms Poole: Might I ask a question? I am not a regular member of the estimates committee. I have sat on estimates a number of times and we have done it in a manner that if there's give and take on the questions, then at the end we table all the ones that haven't been answered.

The Chair: That is correct.

Ms Poole: I'm just wondering, is it normally up to each individual member or caucus to determine how they want to conduct the estimates or is there a committee procedure that you normally follow?

The Chair: By consensus and by precedent, we have been proceeding in this fashion for some time.

Hon Ms Gigantes: What fashion?

The Chair: Excuse me, Minister, I'm responding to a point of clarification from Mrs Poole. That has been a certain degree of flexibility in determining that during the time allocated to us, some being limited, some out of convenience to ministers who can't be in attendance and so on and so forth, fuller responses will be made available. This has been done quite frequently and in fact was done with virtually all of our estimates.

The minister has indicated that she's not prepared to proceed in that fashion. I think what we're debating here is just how much she's going to be called upon, because as I recall, my first question to the minister today was, did you have any of the responses requested from yesterday that you're prepared to respond to? The minister was given time to respond to those questions. Had she been focused on the process, she would have recognized that that time did not count against anybody's caucus. That was given to the minister as time to respond to the questions.

This is not good enough, apparently, for the minister, since this was the procedure I thought we were operating with. Tomorrow, when we begin, if she has any written responses or any fuller responses that are required, she'll be given that time. But I'm hearing that this is not appropriate for this minister.

Ms Poole: I'm just trying to understand the difficulty. I think the difference is that yesterday the minister had an opportunity to give a brief response and then said she would provide further information. But in this particular instance, the minister hasn't had a chance even for a brief response of her own opinion, as well as backing it up at a later date with more ministry documentation.

I, for one, don't have any objection. I can understand Mrs Marland doesn't want a lot of her time taken up with long, weighty answers, but if the minister was given a brief opportunity to respond, I don't think --

Hon Ms Gigantes: That is not allowed.

The Chair: No, the minister is. There are two issues here: One is, will the minister be given an opportunity to respond; and, are the minister and her deputy still agreeable to providing some written responses? Those are the two separate issues here.

Hon Ms Gigantes: No.

The Chair: Excuse me, Minister. As I hear your statements, I indicated that there will be time for you to respond to Mrs Marland. She used her full 20 minutes and I'm here to recognize the NDP. When it comes to Mrs Marland's rotation, you'll be given an opportunity to respond to her questions.

Mr Jamison: Mr Chair, point of order: Will that be on the record or will it be off the record?

The Chair: It'll be on the record. I just have to --

Ms Poole: I thank you for clarifying that. I didn't understand that myself. I didn't understand the minister would have an opportunity in the next rotation.

The Chair: I indicated that the minister would have opportunity and I doubted seriously if Mrs Marland was going to try to use all of her time reading questions into the record. I didn't believe that was the case. The minister wanted an absolute response at this moment. When we were unable to give her an absolute response, we were advised that the offer to assist was being withdrawn.

Now, that still leaves open the issue of whether or not the ministry will respond to some written requests that are the custom for this committee to request, and they do form exhibits to this committee. It remains to be seen if the minister will cooperate, but the minister will be given an opportunity to respond.

Now, I would like to go back to the rotation.

Hon Ms Gigantes: I asked when I would. Have you told me when?

The Chair: I think I've given you a couple of clues, if you've been listening to me, Madam Minister. I indicated that tomorrow --

Interjection.

The Chair: I'm sorry; at our next meeting day, when your staff have come forward with some of the responses -- they don't necessarily have to be in written form, but as long as your time is --

Hon Ms Gigantes: Ah.

The Chair: But that is exactly the way we've been operating.

Mrs Marland: With all ministries.

The Chair: With all ministries. But we still have several hours of time left here, please.

Mr Jamison: Mr Chair --

The Chair: It had better be a point of order, Mr Jamison, because if it isn't, I wish to recognize Mr Lessard and then you in terms of --

Mr Jamison: Just a thought here, Mr Chair, with all due respect. The number of questions that Mrs Marland has put forward indicate that it would take a lengthy period of time to answer those questions appropriately, and I still believe it's crucial that the minister be able to have her remarks recorded on those questions.

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The Chair: Mr Jamison, I'm sorry. We're taking up time that the minister, I understand, wants to respond here.

Mr Jamison: That's a legitimate question, Mr Chair.

The Chair: This is going to be an editorial comment from the Chair, but I have seen occasions where critics have waited to the 11th hour and then put dozens and dozens of questions on and not given the minister time. As I indicated, it was helpful to the process to get these questions on the record, up front and early --

Interjection.

The Chair: No, Mr Jamison --

Mrs Marland: There are two and a half hours next week.

The Chair: Mr Jamison, you're not listening. I'm trying to explain to you that you get your questions on the record and you're given time to respond. The minister wanted to respond when Mrs Marland's time had finished. If the minister is willing to now utilize some of her time -- that was offered to her as well; use some of her caucus colleagues' time -- to respond to that, I'm offering that to her. I've given her three opportunities.

Mr Jamison: That's totally inappropriate, Mr Chair.

The Chair: That's fine, then she'll wait until she has an opportunity to respond to Mrs Marland.

Hon Ms Gigantes: All I asked was when that opportunity was, Mr Chair. I said that in the first place.

The Chair: I've given you three examples. Mr Lessard.

Mr Wayne Lessard (Windsor-Walkerville): I'm going to ask the minister a question and give her an opportunity to respond, because I think it is important for the minister's responses to be verbally made immediately after the questions are asked.

Madam Minister, you know that in the last few years we've seen a real cutback in the federal government's support for many programs, including education and health care and social assistance, for example, but another area has been with respect to housing also, and one of the specific examples that I have is RRAP, the residential rehabilitation assistance program, that I know has had an adverse impact in the city of Windsor. Up until this point, that program was a good balance with the province's program, the Ontario home renewal program, OHRP, and as a result of our expenditure control plan initiatives, we've eliminated the OHRP program.

I understand the reasons for taking the steps that we've had to take to limit our expenditures, but in the city of Windsor that was a program that was being accessed because the housing is very affordable, so that people who are on low incomes and seniors who depend on government support are still able to own their own homes and maintain those homes. We didn't have the same problems that other communities had, where because of the criteria, no one was making application for the funding and therefore it was going unused.

I guess my question is what our reasons were for eliminating the OHRP program and whether there may be some other types of assistance that we could provide for people, like in the city of Windsor, who are able to own their own homes to be able to maintain them.

Hon Ms Gigantes: I wish I could give a happy answer. I don't think I can.

The review that was undertaken of the Ontario home renewal program about a couple of years ago indicated, as you suggest, that uptake of the program by people living in many of the urban centres in Ontario was very low because of the income cutoff, which was just above $20,000 per year. Most people who are in the position of home ownership in Ontario have an income greater than $20,000 a year. So there was an accumulation of program moneys in municipal accounts. The municipalities administered the program for the province and a rather large buildup of moneys in those accounts had occurred.

When we came to the point of deciding whether to change the program so that it was more effective in being available to people who might use it -- in other words, principally raising the income cutoff so that people with a somewhat higher income would be able to access the program -- we had a choice to make and we decided that, given the cost of the program and the amount of money that had been sitting idle in municipal accounts and the fact that we are very squeezed for money in the ministry, this was not a priority change. In fact, we have come to the decision to retrieve moneys from municipal accounts.

We will be continuing the Ontario home renewal program for disabled people and we are also continuing the low-rise rehabilitation program, but we have decided not to revamp and continue OHRP. It really is a question of dollars and cents. You're right, it has served a purpose. It served that purpose better in times past, given the income limits on the program.

Do you want to add anything to that, Dan?

Mr Burns: I think the only thing I'd emphasize is that in recent years the Ontario home renewal program had a fairly low level of utilization. Its original purpose some 15 years ago had, in many ways, been successful in reaching very low-income home owners. That group has shrunk over time and so has the stock of housing they happen to own.

Mr Lessard: Have there been some areas of the province where the uptake in the program has still remained fairly high?

Mr Burns: I'm not sure I'd say fairly high anywhere. There's been some takeup, particularly in communities where the housing was originally, for example, constructed as seasonal or temporary housing in a rural or isolated setting.

Fundamentally, the group it was originally intended to reach has been reached, so the policy choice that arose was, do you revamp the program to reach a larger spectrum of folks or do you wind it up? At a time of tough choices, I guess in this case this one made more sense to wind up. But the program was getting less and less utilization and a very large portion of the funding was frankly sitting unused in reserve accounts and had been for some years.

Mr Jamison: I have one question. There seems to be some concern around the savings in and around the Rent Review Hearings Board. How much money has the government saved by eliminating the Rent Review Hearings Board, Madam Minister, a board that, it was argued by the official opposition, should be kept? What is the estimate or the figures if we add them on the type of savings --

Hon Ms Gigantes: I'm getting some expert input.

The Chair: Will you have a chair please, Mr Glass. You've been introduced. Welcome. You've heard the question?

Mr Robert Glass: I think, as the Minister pointed out yesterday, what we're talking about is quite a different program, but the hearings board costs were in the order of $10,019,000 in 1992-93. Of course, there was the rental standards board as well, which had a budget of slightly over $1 million. The standards board has been eliminated and the hearings board will be eliminated by 1994-95.

Because we've gone to a system of hearings and a single-level process for rent control, the expenditures in the rent control line, which were $22 million, will rise. I believe the net savings at the end of all this will be approximately $2.8 million, by the time the expenditures have increased slightly in the rent control area and they've been eliminated in the standards board and the hearings board.

Hon Ms Gigantes: The reason we're phasing out the hearings board is that there are still appeals coming through from the RRRA.

Mr Glass: Yes, I believe they have 950 active appeals at the present time.

Mr Jamison: When do you feel that process will --

Hon Ms Gigantes: By the late fall of next year.

Mr Glass: Yes, they closed their first office at the beginning of January --

The Chair: Excuse me, I didn't mean to interrupt, but were you present yesterday when this question was raised?

Mr Jamison: I don't believe so.

Hon Ms Gigantes: This question wasn't raised yesterday, I don't think.

Ms Poole: This question was raised. On a point of order, Mr Chair.

The Chair: It's a point of order; I have to recognize that.

Ms Poole: On a point of order, Mr Chair: It's very important for the committee to have accurate information. Mr Brown asked this question yesterday as to how many appeals were held last year. The minister said zero, and we've just heard that there are 950 outstanding.

The Chair: There are two different things here.

Mr Glass: I believe the question was, how many appeals we have had under the Rent Control Act, and the answer was that there isn't an appellant body other than an appeal to court on a matter of law. We've had two requests so far.

At any rate, the board closed its office in Sudbury in January. It plans to close its office in eastern Ontario in Ottawa in December or January, at the end of this year, and the southwestern region in London, I believe, in February. They will close down their main Toronto city location in June 1994.

There will probably be a residual number of appeals that go on for a number of years, because there are a number of cases in front of the courts, and they are blocking other applications, and that could go on for some time.

Our experience with the Residential Tenancy Com mission was that there were one or two commissioners for about four years.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Glass. Being 6 of the clock, this committee stands adjourned to reconvene on Tuesday, July 20.

The committee adjourned at 1802.